by Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports

NEW ORLEANS -- So I guess Beyonce's performance really was lights out after all.

Judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction on Twitter, the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show Starring Beyonce was a huge success among the 110 million worldwide viewers it was broadcast to.

In person, the multiplatinum artist's set seemed perfunctory, considering the pre-show hype CBS had created.

While viewers at home seemed pleased by the 12-minute set, it was hard for fans in the stadium to experience the same kind of HD clarity, audio superiority and multi-angle closeups (there was lots of talk online about "big thighs") that the CBS broadcast audience could.

If anything, the most impressive part of witnessing the show in person was the stage setup. Minutes after the second quarter ended, hundreds of workers rushed out 20 platforms and fashioned together a stage that looked like a high-tech game show.

The efficiency was impressive, making the assemblage look like a real-time version of a time lapse web video. It's a level of technical superiority that could have been emulated about 25 minutes later as the entire stadium lost more than half of its electricity.

As Beyonce rose up from the stage and launched into Crazy in Love, the acoustics in the Dome made her voice seem unusually tonal, as she failed to command the stadium the way she might a smaller venue.

The performance wasn't designed for the people in the crowd and it's hard to say whether the people in the live audience even would have shown interest in an appearance by Beyonce's husband Jay-Z or even Justin Timberlake, who performed in town Saturday night.

While the energy among the hundreds of fans ushered in along the field for the performance might have been different, fans up top didn't seem to have much reaction beyond casual wrist waves of their complimentary "finger flashlights," even when Beyonce's former bandmates in Destiny's Child appeared for a long-expected reunion.

The special effects did add a fun touch live, highlighted by a pyrotechnic guitar player. And while "finger flashlight" is likely to become some sort of dirty euphemism within the next 24 hours, all of the little blue lights in the stadium made the Superdome feel like the world's biggest planetarium for a few songs. They also would've come in handy had the power situation gone on any longer.